An Inconvenient Truth
by Maybe the Moon
Summary: Wilson lends Cuddy a hand and reveals something about himself in the process. House proceeds to freak out. Contains gratiutous SkeeBall. Slash, if you squint.
1. Chapter 1

Wilson sat in one of the cafeteria booths, ignoring his bottled water and picking absently at a salad. Across from him Cuddy chowed down on a BLT, hold the B, extra mayo. She laughed at something Wilson said and took a sip of her Vitamin Water - the orange kind, with the extra calcium. House peered around the corner of his battered, July 2001 copy of _Woman's Day_ and narrowed his eyes at them, noting with vague nausea how their feet nearly touched beneath the table.

It was when Wilson reached easily across the table, took Cuddy's bottle out of her hand and drank from it that House began to seethe. In a normal world, Cuddy would have snatched it away from Wilson, insisted he pay for it, maybe poured the rest out over Wilson's meticulously-sculpted hair. Instead she just chuckled prettily and said something softly to Wilson that made him laugh and choke on his mouthful.

House felt as though he was watching soft-core porn, only without any hot Japanese schoolgirls.

Magazine and feeble attempt at subtlety forgotten, he sipped his Coke, munched from his plate of fries and glared in their general direction until he caught Wilson's eye. A lifted and incredibly bushy eyebrow, followed by a roll of the eyes and an expression of exasperation, and the "business lunch" was over. Wilson bused the table, smiled as Cuddy clicked away in her stiletto heels, then made his way over to House's table.

"You're about as subtle as the Stealth Bomber, you know."

"Actually, I'm totally ninja." House folded up his paper and looked at him. "To everyone else, it looks like you're chatting with a ficus plant."

Wilson sat down and helped himself to one of House's fries, snatching it quickly before House could slap his hand away. "I told you before, and I'll tell you again: there's nothing going on between me and Cuddy."

"And I told you before that I think there _should_ be something between you. Such as a strategically-placed layer of latex and some Astroglide."

"That's... fairly graphic, and coming from you? Very disturbing."

House shrugged. "Don't blame me, blame Letters to Penthouse." He drank his soda. "For people with nothing between you, you seemed pretty cozy."

Wilson sighed. "House, seriously. Give it a rest." He nicked another fry. "She's a friend. She's going through something, I'm a good listener..." Even as he spoke Wilson seemed to know he'd just made an error in judgment, and he suddenly paused and cleared his throat. "What I mean is, she's busy and stressed out, and-"

"-and that's not what you were talking to her about." House leaned forward, waggled a fry at Wilson's face. "So, what's the great conspiracy?"

"There's no conspiracy, House!" Wilson said. "Listen, how about we pretend I never said anything."

"Nope!" House smirked. "As it said in my kindergarten report card, I am imaginative, stubborn, and prone to eating paste. You said something. I'm interested. What's Cuddy going through that she needs kindly Doctor Wilson's shoulder to cry on?"

Wilson tensed. "It's... personal."

"Oh, right. I forgot, everything's _personal_ with you, now." House scowled. "It isn't so personal that you couldn't discuss it in a crowded cafeteria."

"We weren't-"

"That's right, you weren't." House chomped on his fry. "So either you're lying and you _are_ sleeping with Cuddy, or there is something going on with her and it's not as dire as you make it sound. Which is it?" He looked at Wilson, chewing expectantly.

After a moment's hesitation, Wilson cleared his throat and leaned in a little, and lowered his voice to a murmur.

"Is there somewhere else we can go to talk?"

--

"You did _what_?"

Wilson ducked his head and glanced around. Fortunately for him, the only people nearby were the clinic nurses, and they were used to House's grating voice and outbursts. No one looked at them.

"Keep it down," said Wilson, firmly shutting the exam room door and pushing the lock into place. "Cuddy asked for a little discretion, which in hindsight probably meant not telling you..."

House continued to stare at him. "This is such a bad idea that it should be the _sultan_ of bad ideas, and make all other bad ideas its harem." He narrowed his eyes at Wilson. "You never wanted kids before. Why now? Why _Cuddy_?"

Wilson sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "You didn't hear her," he said, looking up and fixing House with an accusing look. "After you went off on her? Told her she'd suck at being a mother? You didn't see her in her office afterward."

For a moment, House looked confused, then slightly guilty, then he frowned. "So, you felt sorry for her," he said. "That's a crappy reason to want to have a kid with someone. What, is this just another way you think your dick can heal all wounds?"

"This has nothing to do with me!" snapped Wilson. He ran a hand through his hair in obvious exasperation, and House took a perverse pleasure in the fact that the cowlick Wilson always worked so hard to tame was now sticking straight up.

"It has everything to do with you," he said, "and your complex of wanting to save everyone you come into contact with." House limped around the tiny room and drew the blinds against the curious stares of the clinic staff. "You couldn't just slip a roofie into her coffee and drop her off at a bar?"

Wilson glared at him. "House, just shut up. I don't even know why I told you. I don't know why I tell you _anything_, anymore."

"Well," said House, leaning against the examination table, "if you told me because you want my blessing, you're not getting it." He shook his head. "You live in a hotel. Your divorce isn't even final. You spend eighteen hours a day in this hospital and on weekends you spend eighteen hours on my couch watching Mythbusters reruns, because you've got nothing better to do. Except, apparently, knocking up the Dean of Medicine."

"It wasn't like that-"

"Oh, my bad." House rolled his eyes. "You provided her with her own do-it-yourself kit. Let me guess, a turkey baster and a jar with an ugly tie around the neck?"

"I wanted to help her, House!" Wilson gestured wildly, hair sticking out in all directions. He almost looked comical, if it weren't for his slightly constipated expression. "That's all!"

House snorted. "That's never all, with _you_." He pointed his cane at Wilson. "You dosed me with anti-depressants to 'help' me, but what did you get out of it? How does a happy House benefit you?"

Wilson laughed without mirth and shook his head. "Let me count the ways," he snapped. "If anything, the hospital should have given me a medal of honor for doing that. Or a raise."

"Sounds like Cuddy gave you a _raise_, all right-"

"House, _stop it_!" Wilson pointed a finger at House. "You don't get to tell me my motives for doing this! I know what they are, and that's all that matters. Cuddy got what she wanted, and I got-"

"What?" House interrupted. "What did you get?"

Wilson hesitated, then lifted his chin, a little defiantly and looked House in the eye. "I got something I was never going to have," he said, in a slightly uneven voice. "Val and I were too young for children, Bonnie miscarried twice before we gave up, and Julie wasn't interested. This..." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully, then sighed. "I thought this was my last chance."

The room was silent as House mulled that over. "You actually _want_ a kid."

"Yeah." Wilson nodded. He rubbed the back of his neck and shuffled his feet, looking at them and then up at House, wearily. "Yeah."

"Another thing you've never mentioned."

House suddenly felt that at some point during the conversation an elephant had wandered into the room, sat down and made itself at home between them. He could feel its presence, he knew Wilson could feel it, but like _hell_ if either of them was going to talk about it. A glance at Wilson revealed an expression of defiance, hands jammed into the pockets of his lab coat. House leaned hard on his cane and looked at the floor.

"How'd you do it?"

"Excuse me?"

House looked up. "Either you donated or you did her. Which was it?"

Wilson bit his lower lip. "I... donated. She's working with CRMI in New York." He feigned fascination with his left shoe. "She said she'd keep me informed."

"So she doesn't know," said House. "If it took."

"Not yet." Wilson glanced at him. "It's only seven days past transfer."

The elephant was getting bigger. House realized he'd have to be the one to point it out.

"Why'd you think this was your last chance?" he asked.

"House, I'm not going to talk-"

"You're not telling me something important," House said. He narrowed his eyes as if he were trying to see right through Wilson, past the crunchy outer shell to the soft, chewy center. Wilson the Skittle. "You're forty years old, but you're not a woman. Your breeding years aren't completely behind you." He frowned, hefted his cane and spun it in one hand. "It's not hard for you to get women. It's _never_ been hard for you to get women. Whenever we go out you end up with phone numbers coming out of your ears by last call. There's no reason for you to think-"

"_House_."

Wilson's voice cracked, and he went suddenly pale. He looked at House almost pleadingly, eyes wide and hands curled into fists at his sides. House hadn't seen Wilson so tense since Tritter's reign-of-annoyance. "Drop it," he croaked. "Please."

House stared at him.

"Seriously," said Wilson, swallowing hard. "Don't."

The elephant in the room had just taken an enormous dump on the floor. House wrinkled his nose and studied Wilson intently.

"Let me guess," he said. "It's _personal_."

When Wilson looked away without a reply, House wordlessly limped past him, opened the door and left the room.

--

He didn't knock before barging into Cuddy's office.

"If you're going to let a manipulative, narcissistic bastard father your spawn," he announced, "then you should've have picked the taller one."

Cuddy looked up and, for a split second, looked terrified. "He told you," she said. It wasn't a question. "I asked him to be discreet. Obviously he owns a different dictionary than I do."

House smacked his cane down onto her desk, upsetting an empty coffee cup. "What the hell are you thinking?"

"Dr. House, I don't see how this is _any_ of your business."

"Oh, don't pull that _professionalism_ crap with me. I've seen you upside down, naked and covered in chocolate sauce. I've seen _him_ puking his guts out in the men's room of a sports bar. And you've both seen me use a bedpan. There's no dignity left between any of us." He glared at her. "You've made a _really_ big mistake."

Cuddy glowered at him. "House, shut up and get out."

House placed both hands on the desk and leaned in until he was practically nose to nose with her. "He's the last person you want to be your baby-daddy."

"No, that would be _you_." She picked the cane up and held it out to him. "I have work to do, House. And so do you. So if you don't mind-"

House took the cane and used it to hook a chair and drag it closer, flinging himself into it. He leaned back and giving her a calculating look. "You were going to ask me," he said.

She sighed and rubbed at her temple with two fingers. "House, your solution to the overpopulated maternity ward was to offer to go to Costco and buy bug spray in bulk." She eyed him. "Why the hell would I ask you to father my child?"

"Because." House stopped, and frowned. "Because..."

Cuddy snorted.

"You can't tell me the reason, can you?" she said, leaning back in her chair, her pretty blue top open by one button too many. "You're not jealous because you _want_ to do it, you just wanted to be _picked_ to do it." She leaned forward and pointed at him. "This isn't recess, House. We're not playing kickball. But if you wanted to make the team, you should have come to tryouts."

"Can't play kickball," he snapped. "I've got a note."

With a roll of her eyes she scooped up some papers and shuffled them with purpose. "This conversation is over, House."

"Wilson shouldn't have made the cut at all," he went on. "He always runs from the ball, or sneaks off to play on the jungle gym instead-"

She fixed him with a look. "The analogy is over, too."

House sighed. "It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings," he quipped, rising from the chair. "But I'll be sure to listen at your door for any tell-tale warbling in about, oh, six months."

He pretended not to see her nearly smile.

--

Three days later on a Saturday night, Wilson turned up at his door, disheveled and unshaven, and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt touting a bar on Martha's Vineyard. House wondered how recently he'd slept.

"It took," he said, once House let him in. Wilson sank into the couch and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Labs confirmed it yesterday. Cuddy's pregnant."

House went into the kitchen and returned with two beers in his hands. Without a word he limped awkwardly to the couch, pressed one of the beers into Wilson's outstretched hand, and sat next to him, cracking open his own bottle.

Wilson opened his beer and took a long swallow. "Cuddy's excited - of course, she's excited. Cautiously excited. She lost the last one."

"She did?" House looked at him, surprised. "She never said-"

Wilson shook his head. "It was back when you had your head up your ass. After shoving that thermometer up Tritter's."

"Ah."

They drank their beers and House turned on the television. He flipped around the channels until he landed on the Discovery Channel, which was showing a marathon of Dirty Jobs. They fell silent, but Wilson's silence was louder than usual. He cast a few surreptitious glances in Wilson's direction, between sips of beer. The only time Wilson moved was to put his feet up on the coffee table.

"You're freaking out."

Wilson glanced at him. "My mother will be happy," he said, at length.

"Is that why you did it?" House asked, swirling his beer around, watching the fizzy little whirlpool form. "Because you think it's something you _should_ want to do? Have a kid, please your mother, be the world's greatest dad?"

"You can't ask me that." He looked at House. "You never do anything to please anyone, even yourself."

"We're not talking about me. We're talking about you."

"I don't want to talk about either of us." He looked away. "I want to sit here and watch TV."

House nodded. "Okay." He looked back at the television.

After a few minutes, Wilson sighed and scratched the back of his head. He looked at House. "I can hear you thinking from here," he said. "What? What're you thinking?"

"I'm not thinking anything." House nodded at the television. "Except that a grown man trying to herd ostriches is pretty damn funny."

"House."

"You didn't want to talk about it."

"Well, maybe now I do."

"I'm pretty sure I still don't."

Wilson threw up his hands. "This is impossible. I don't know why I came over here."

"I don't either," said House, rising from the couch and limping caneless into the kitchen, to trash his beer bottle and retrieve another. He leaned against the kitchen doorway and eyed Wilson warily. "If you're looking for absolution, my good vestments are in the laundry."

"That's not what I want." Wilson looked at him. "House, I just-" He hesitated, then sighed and hung his head. "I don't regret what I did," he said to the floor.

House frowned. "Then what's the problem?"

"The problem is that this..." He breathed out slowly and lifted his head, looked at the ceiling. "...isn't how I thought it would be."

"Okay, if there's going to be any baring of souls, here, then I need something other than beer." House turned and limped back into the kitchen. "I think I've got some Drano under the sink..."

Wilson rolled his eyes. "Just forget it." He picked up the remote, changing the channel to the Food Network, the Cartoon Network, CNN. "You can come back in, now. I'm done boring you with my trivial concerns for my psychological well-being."

House reappeared, giving Wilson the hairy eyeball. "You better not have gotten any of that emo on my couch. I've already had to have it cleaned once, because of you."

"You only have yourself to blame for that," said Wilson. He flicked through the channels quickly, finally settling on Telemundo. "Remind me to keep you away from it. "

"From what?"

Wilson looked at him. "My... kid."

"Ah. Yes." House eyed the remote in Wilson's hand. "Hate to say it, but _Sabado Gigante_ just ain't doing it for me."

"There's nothing else on," said Wilson absently. House snatched the remote away. "Hey!"

"There's something else on _in English_," he snapped, changing the channel to ESPN and settling back. He let his head roll to one side, gazing at Wilson intently. "It's not your kid, you know."

"Uh, my DNA would disagree with you."

"Biologically, okay. It'll look like you, though hopefully it won't get your eyebrows, but how involved do you think you're actually going to be?" House put his feet up on the coffee table. "This is Cuddy's baby. It'll have her name and live in her house. You might get to see it on the High Holy Days, but you're not going to be reading bedtime stories or driving it to piano lessons. You'll be lucky if you get to come to the bris."

Wilson huffed. "You're really giving Cuddy a lot of credit. She said I could be involved."

"She's going to manage that kid the way she manages the hospital," said House. "And you might get to be a department head, but that won't guarantee you any kind of actual responsibility."

"I have plenty of responsibility to the hospital, and I'll have plenty of responsibility to my child!" Wilson sat up and looked at him. "House, why're you doing this? Why do you have to make me feel like _crap_ about everything I do?"

"I don't-"

"You do. You did this with all three of my marriages. You do this with my job. You did it when I _bought my car_, for Pete's sake! You do this with everything!"

House frowned. "Because your judgment is usually flawed when it comes to those things." Wilson rolled his eyes. "What? Did I miss the memo that sleeping with your patients was a _good_ career move?"

Wilson groaned. "Here we go again," he said, rubbing two fingers against the bridge of his nose. He glared at House. "And you wonder why I don't tell you things."

"I don't wonder," said House with a sniff. "You don't tell me things because you don't want me to know how screwed up you really are. Because that would make you a great, big hypocrite whenever you lecture me on how screwed up _my_ life is. You lie by omission." He looked Wilson over, appraisingly. "The reality is that you're probably _more_ screwed up than me."

"Oh, right." Wilson snorted. "I don't know how could I possibly be more screwed up than you."

"It's no easy task," said House, narrowing his eyes and studied Wilson with a piercing look. "But you are, aren't you?"

Wilson didn't answer. He didn't even look at House. For several silent minutes he stared at his hands, looking anxious and unsettled. The television droned on, and House only glanced at it long enough to check the Flyers score before looking back at Wilson, waiting.

He wasn't prepared for what happened next.

"House, I'm gay."

--

A week passed following Wilson's little revelation, after which he got up from the couch and quietly let himself out of House's apartment. They'd avoided each other ever since, Wilson finding things to do outside the hospital, such as lunch meetings, seminars, courting donors with Cuddy. House kept himself busy with the case of a banana-colored baby brought to him by a nurse in NICU. The case was interesting – jaundice with no apparent anomalies in the liver , and the kid's parents were _Amish_, for God's sake – but not interesting enough to keep House from being distracted by the fact that his best friend had come out to him.

He couldn't figure out how he could have missed this kind of thing. He knew about stereotypes, he'd lived in San Francisco as a teenager in the late seventies, but he never saw this one coming. The hair, the shoes, the copy of _The Joy of Cooking_ Wilson had stashed in the second drawer of his desk – they were things House consider simply _Wilsonesque_ and not particularly gay. Wilson was the guy who could tell you the cup size of a woman at fifty yards. He liked monster trucks and geeks blowing shit up on the Discovery Channel. House had never seen him give another man a second look.

How the _hell_ could Wilson be gay?

"You're lying," he said, ambushing Wilson in the men's room once he'd had enough of their self-imposed radio silence. "You're not gay."

Wilson didn't even start, as though he'd expected House to appear out of nowhere, at some point. He pointedly didn't look at House, instead keeping his eyes trained on the tiled wall in front of him. "Funny," he said with a sigh. "My father said the same thing when I told him."

"There's no way you're gay." House stepped up to a urinal and unzipped. "I don't believe it."

"I don't believe we're having this conversation in the men's room."

"Why would you tell me something like that?" asked House, glancing at him and quickly looking away. "Is this your new thing? Lecturing me isn't working so let's resort to shock tactics? Scare me straight by telling me you're not?"

"I told you because it's true," said Wilson, zipping up and flushing the urinal with his elbow. He went to the sinks. "Because I needed to tell you. I wanted to tell you, but..."

Wilson hesitated, then turned on the water to wash his hands. House finished up, flushed and limped awkwardly over to the sinks, looking at Wilson in the mirror. "You wanted to?" He frowned. "For how long?"

"...a while." Wilson scrubbed his hands a little too vigorously. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm not lying. I'm telling you the truth, which I would think you'd appreciate since you like to believe that everything anyone ever tells you is a lie. A little truth now and then should feel refreshing."

"Gee, thanks." House slapped at the faucet and stuck his hands in the water. "I really appreciate your method. You're the suicide bomber of revelations."

"Oh, sorry, did I inconvenience you by letting you in on something deeply personal?" Wilson said, snidely. He shut off the water and grabbed a handful of paper towels. "This actually doesn't have anything to do with you, you know. It's about me. I told you because I needed to tell you. My therapist-"

"Your _therapist_?" House jerked his head up and stared. "Oh, this just gets better and better – first you knock up Cuddy, then you think you're gay, and now you're in therapy. Excellent. I'm starting to love Tuesdays."

"House." Wilson shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't _think_ I'm gay. I _am_ gay." He looked up and met House's gaze unwaveringly. "Deal with it."

It was unsettling, the way Wilson looked at him, but House didn't look away. "How gay are you?" he asked, turning off the water and reaching for the paper towels. "I mean, everybody's a little bit gay. An entire generation went a little bit gay after _Star Wars_ came out because if you didn't want to _be_ Han Solo, you wanted to _do_ him. Though I never understood that sentiment, myself. Luke was _way_ cuter." House dried his hands and lobbed the balled-up towels toward the trash, and missed.

Wilson swallowed audibly. "If you can't take this seriously then this conversation is over." He tried to step around House, toward the exit. House quickly brought up his cane and poked Wilson in the chest with it to prevent his escape. "_House-_"

"Answer the question," said House, eyeing him intently. He prodded Wilson a little harder. "On the Kinsey scale."

"Why should I tell you?" Wilson knocked the cane aside, breathing hard. "What, if I'm just a two or a three, it'll make you feel better? Not _too_ gay, just gay enough to give you more about me to mock?"

"That is so not-"

"It _is_ true!" Wilson shouted. "You always do this! You always take something you can't handle and try to manipulate it into something that makes sense _to you_. I'm not a patient, House. You don't manipulate your friends."

House snorted. "You manipulate me all the time. Lying to me about curing a patient? And don't think I don't know it was your idea and not Cuddy's to get me to give up the pills for a week, that one time." He pointed a finger at him. "I _know_ you-"

"Do you really?" Wilson exhaled slowly, sounding suddenly weary. He put his hands on his hips and stepped back, looking at the floor. His tie was crooked and at some point in the conversation his carefully-arranged hair had come apart. It made him look impossibly young, though when he lifted his head House could see the years between them etched in Wilson's features. "Sometimes, I don't think you know me at all. Or as well as you think you do."

Fidgeting uncomfortably, House cleared his throat. "I should have known this," he said evenly. "I don't know how I missed it."

"Because I didn't want you to see it," said Wilson. "You don't see anything I don't want you to see."

House looked at him. "Why?"

Wilson suddenly smiled, then laughed without mirth. He shook his head. "House, if I have to tell you..."

"Humor me."

"No." Wilson looked him in the eye. "I've humored you enough. You need to figure this one out on your own." He turned and looked in the mirror and made a half-assed attempt at reordering his hair, then shot House's reflection a look. "You're the brilliant diagnostician, after all."

House rolled his eyes. "Cute. Is this you teaching me another lesson, Professor All-Knowing and Well-Meaning?"

Wilson just smiled and straightened his tie. "See you later, House," he said, stepping around him and walking out.

--

"Mister, it's my turn, now!"

House turned and gave the kid a look that sent it scurrying to the other side of the arcade. He smirked and went back to his game, stooping a little because the thing wasn't exactly intended for those over four feet tall.

It was a well-known fact that House did most of his thinking at the piano or while watching television. Slightly lesser-known was that he also did his thinking in the shower or on the can. What wasn't known was House's preferred method for stirring up the really, really deep thoughts was an hour and a half away, before rush hour traffic, in Asbury Park.

He gripped the little wooden ball tightly and lined up his shot, drawing his arm back and letting it go in a slow, graceful underhand. The ball rolled up the ramp and launched, landing neatly in the 40-point hole. House pumped his fist in the air and huffed an emphatic "Yes!" as the ticket machine spewed out his winnings, a little pile of tickets curled snake-like at his feet.

Nothing like a game of Skee-ball to inspire a man to think.

He thought about his patient (the banana-colored baby, at least until the blue neon light from a DDR machine reminded him of Crigler-Najjar syndrome, and he had to make a phone call to the NICU), about his leg (until the Vicodin kicked in) and then he thought about Wilson. He didn't claim to know everything about James Evan Wilson (who had the best initials _ever_) but the fact of the matter was that despite Wilson's claims to the contrary, House knew more about him than almost anyone else around. Even Wilson's wives didn't know him as well as House did, or else they wouldn't have been so surprised when their marriages fell apart. He had personnel files and a friendship spanning almost twenty years to thank for his Wilson knowledge, but by far the most helpful and revealing source of information was something no one, not even Wilson, would have ever expected House to have access to: Wilson's mother.

For reasons House couldn't begin to diagnose, Wilson's mom liked him. The first time he'd met her, at one of Wilson's weddings, they'd wound up knocking back snifters of brandy together and laughing at fantastic, terrible stories of Wilson's youth. She was a magisterial, imposing Westchester Jew who was intensely proud of her eldest son, which meant that on every occasion that she had a willing audience (House, who showed up for brunches whenever he could) she would impart her pride in detail. By the time marriage number three came and went, House knew about every scraped knee and every gold star little Jimmy had ever had. It was beautiful, mostly because it drove Wilson _nuts_.

Wilson was a Smart Kid, the kind of kid House liked to beat up back when he was in school even though he was just as smart as them, if not smarter. He'd finished high school at sixteen, sailed through college in two years, med school in three. He was popular and outgoing, having pledged Alpha Epsilon Pi, played baseball and wrestled, and in the end he graduated _summa cum laude_. As soon as he expressed interest in becoming a doctor, medical schools all over the country practically tripped over themselves offering up grants and scholarships. House eventually met him in Boston during his own fellowship at Harvard Med, while Wilson was doing his residency at Dana-Farber. The kid was fresh-faced, barely into his twenties and so sarcastic that House couldn't resist. He _had_ to know him, and once he did, he'd decided to keep him.

House tossed another Skee-Ball and missed. He frowned. What the hell was Wilson talking about? _You don't see anything I don't want you to see._ What did that even mean? He readied another ball and took aim, and wondered just what else Wilson thought he was hiding, from House, from everybody. Besides the gay thing, which House hadn't even let himself think about, yet.

Wilson being gay wasn't actually that big of a deal. The fact that his best friend was homosexual wasn't what bothered House, but rather that his best friend _hadn't told him_. Even _more_ irritating was that House had _missed it_. He should have known, he should have been able to tell. Wilson should have told him and House should have known already, and neither of those things had happened. Was that what Wilson meant?

Then a thought hit him, so suddenly and with such force he botched his next throw and the ball sailed into the game next to his. The kid playing it gave him a dirty look, but House barely noticed.

_"House, if I have to tell you..."_

_"Humor me."_

_"No. I've humored you enough. You need to figure this one out on your own."_

Wilson was in love with him.

It _fit_. He could see all the symptoms as clearly as if they'd been written on a whiteboard. It made _sense_. Of _course_ Wilson wouldn't come out to him, if he were the reason behind the new orientation. It was why he hadn't been able to figure it out for himself; he hadn't _wanted_ to see Wilson's obvious gay crush on him, so he didn't. It was simple, it was perfect, and once the euphoria of solving the case wore off, it started to freak House the hell out.

He'd watched enough television - specifically that one show on cable - to know that when a gay guy falls for a straight guy, it gets very complicated and messy and uncomfortable. House wasn't too proud to admit (to himself, at least) that he had very few things going for him beyond his friendship with Wilson. He really didn't have many other friends beyond a few guys with whom he traded e-mails every so often. Dylan Crandall had called twice since the incident with the daughter-who-wasn't-actually-his-daughter in an attempt to keep their tentative acquaintance going; House indulged him with some snappy rapport and a half-assed promise to catch up the next time Crandall found himself in New York. It made him feel a little less pathetic that he managed to communicate with other people once in a while, but the sad fact was that he _was_ pathetic, that none of it came close to the thing he had with Wilson. It defied explanation, it had no absolute definition, and if he were _really_ honest with himself, it was his greatest accomplishment. Any moron could become a doctor, but it took a lot of effort to keep a functionally-dysfunctional friendship going for almost twenty years.

Wilson was his human credentials, and House wasn't stupid; he knew he couldn't afford to lose that.

He had to do something about it.

--

House decided to avoid Wilson for a while, until he'd worked out a game plan, but now that he didn't want to talk to him Wilson was everywhere, poking his head into the conference room for consults and dropping by his office to make lunch plans. It was when House actually considered volunteering more time to the clinic that he realized that avoidance just wasn't going to work.

He needed to get away for a while.

A quick Google search revealed a list of upcoming medical conferences, and House picked one by date - the day after tomorrow - and printed a registration form. He filled it out quickly and limped off to the elevators, ignoring Nurse Previn's usual glare from the nurse's station as he barged into Cuddy's office and dropped the form on her desk. "I have a conference," he said. "So I need time off."

"You don't go to conferences," said Cuddy blandly, without looking up.

"This one is _very_ important," said House, standing over her. "It's essential to my department and - hell, my entire career."

With a long-suffering sigh and a dirty look Cuddy picked up the form and skimmed it. "The Thirty-First Annual Meeting of the Christian Ophthalmology Society?" she read. "Well, I'm sure that would be a scintillating event, if you were either a Christian or an ophthalmologist." She lowered the paper and fixed House with a curious and somewhat amused look. "This wouldn't have anything to do with what Wilson told you, last week, would it? He told me." Her voice softened to that annoyingly tone of concern that made House's teeth itch. "That he told you. What do you-"

"Nope!" House chirped quickly, as he cursed himself inwardly for not paying attention to conference titles. "I'm just trying to do my darnedest for this hospital, and what better way than to get in touch with Jesus and see what He has to say about eye health."

She looked at him for a moment in quiet contemplation, her eyes narrowed and a smile teasing the corners of her mouth. "Okay," she said.

House blinked. "Okay?"

"I think it's a good idea," said Cuddy. "I think you should get the hell out of Dodge for a few days and freak out properly, away from innocent bystanders. Then maybe we can all go back to normal - or whatever approaches normal, around here." She made a show of shuffling some papers.

"I'm not freaking out," said House. "And what about my department?"

"Huh." Cuddy tilted her head. "Your department. Now, why weren't you worried about your department before you came in? Oh, that's right! Because it wasn't convenient to you to worry about it until now. Well, don't worry." She smiled like a snake. "I have just the person in mind to run things in your stead."

With a sudden, twisting sensation in his gut House stared at her. "You wouldn't _dare_."

Cuddy sniffed. "Dr. Chase has a proven track record as an excellent diagnostician, and a stunning resume. Why, he even won a fellowship under a famous doctor! Can't recall his name... Something to do with buildings. Dr. Shack? Or was it Yurt?"

"Cute." House scowled at her. "You're not giving my department to the guy I fired."

Cuddy shot him a look. "House? Get a plane ticket, get packed, get over it." She flashed him a playful grin for just a brief moment before her face snapped back into the mask of disdain that she usually wore around him. "And get out."

With a little snarl, House went, making sure to slam the door behind him.

--

"You're going where?"

"Memphis, Tennessee." House chucked a t-shirt into the duffel bag, then another t-shirt, then a red t-shirt, in case he wanted to shake things up a bit. "The River City. Home of Sun Studios, Beale Street and about two hundred episodes of COPS."

Wilson stood in the doorway to House's bedroom, hands on his hips. "This is how you're going to handle it? By running off." He shook his head, turned and went into the living room. "Great, House. That's great."

House rummaged around in his closet for a pair of shoes. "It's not my fault I'm in such demand," he called out. "I'm world-famous, you know!" He cursed softly under his breath when he realized he couldn't find his current favourite sneakers. "My life is so hard," he sighed, mostly to himself.

"Unless they've got you coming in so that you can give a lecture on conjunctivitis, I highly doubt this is anyone else's doing but your own." Wilson was back in the doorway again, this time leaning against it.

"Pink eye's a bitch, man."

"House, this is ridiculous."

"What's ridiculous," said House, kneeling awkwardly to peer under his bed, "is that you're here, trying to talk me out of leaving town for a few days. If the rest of the hospital staff knew, they'd take you out to the parking lot and stone your ass - aha!" He reached under the bed and pulled out the errant Nikes, lobbing them up into the bag. He looked at Wilson. "Why _are_ you here, anyway?"

Wilson sighed. "Cuddy," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "She said this had something to do with me." He looked at House. "Does it?"

House shook his head. "Nope."

"Liar."

It took some effort, but House got up off the floor and went to his bureau, pulling out a few pairs of shorts from the top drawer. He paused for a moment and wondered if it was wise to show off his underwear in front of a man who clearly wanted to bone him, then shoved them quickly into the bag, zipping it up.

"You didn't pack a suit," Wilson observed.

"Don't need one," House replied. "You know those ophthalmologists. It's just party, party, party with those guys."

"Right." Wilson studied him silently for a moment, expression unreadable. "You're freaking out."

"Why does everyone think I'm freaking out?" House asked with a note of exasperation. It didn't matter that he actually _was_ freaking out, it was just _really_ annoying that people kept trying to point it out. "I'm not freaking out. You're gay, big deal."

Wilson flinched, ever so slightly. "It's a big deal to me," he said, in a small voice. "It's okay if it's a big deal to you, so long as you admit it's a big deal."

"Why do you _want_ me to think it's a big deal?" House asked.

"I didn't say I wanted you to think that it's a big deal, I said it was _okay_ if you did!" Wilson ran a hand through his hair. "If it is, we can talk about it-"

"I don't want to talk about it," snapped House. "We've talked about it. Several times, in fact. You like dick, I get it." He shrugged in an effort at nonchalance. "If you want a parade, you have to wait until June."

"You're impossible," Wilson said, throwing up his hands in defeat. "Fine, go to Memphis, I don't give a crap. It might be nice not to have to have these pointless conversations every day."

House huffed, hefted the duffel bag and retrieved his cane from its resting place by the door. "Now you're seeing the light," he said, limping past Wilson to the living room. "The cab'll be here in five."

"I'm going." Wilson's stride was quick and determined as he fetched his jacket. "Enjoy your trip."

"I will."

They looked at each other awkwardly for a moment, before Wilson let himself out without another word. House stared at the door for a long time after he'd gone, feeling unsettled, until the beep of a horn announced the arrival of the taxi.


	2. Chapter 2

His cell phone rang while he was in the Jungle Room.

"Where are you?" asked Wilson, sounding hollow and far away.

House stepped out of the way of a bottle-blonde with frosty pink lipstick. "Mecca," he said. "America's answer to the Wailing Wall."

He could hear the smile in Wilson's voice. "Graceland?"

"Graceland."

"How is it?"

A gaggle of Japanese tourists suddenly filled the room, and for a moment House had a flashback to his childhood on Okinawa. "Educational," he said loudly into the phone. "Inspirational. One day, I too shall meet my maker bare-assed on the- hang on." House waited until they'd taken their barrage of photographs and moved on before he spoke again. "Okay, so. Who's dying?"

"No one's dying," said Wilson. "I just hadn't heard from you. I was wondering, you know. How you're doing?"

"I'm fine, Mom."

Wilson sighed. "I know you tried to tell me that this doesn't have anything to do with me," he said, "but I think it does."

"The sun does shine out of your ass, Jimmy." House smirked. "Al Gore's talking about harnessing it for energy."

"If you wanted time to process it, I would've understood." Wilson sounded hurt. "You didn't have to _run away from home._"

House rolled his eyes. "I didn't _run away_. This isn't like you told me I couldn't have any cookies 'till after dinner. You _came out of the closet_." A little old lady and her husband, standing next to him and wearing matching Elvis t-shirts, gave him a funny look. He gave them one in return. "And for the last time, this has _nothing_ to do with you. This is a pilgrimage."

"Fine." Wilson made a funny noise, and House knew Wilson didn't believe him but wasn't interested in fighting about it anymore. "When are you coming back?"

"Tuesday night at nine."

"Need a ride?"

He almost said no. He could have said no. "Sure," he said. "Thanks."

"Great." Suddenly, Wilson's tone became more relaxed, even cheerful. "Call me later with your flight information. I'll meet you at baggage claim."

"Sounds good," House said. "I gotta go. This place closes in an hour and I haven't even made it to the gift shop yet. You know Cuddy; if I don't bring her a sparkly Elvis back-scratcher, she'll never forgive me."

Wilson chuckled. "See you later, House."

"Later."

After hanging up he went outside to Elvis's grave, where he stood and stared at the tombstone until the letters ran together. His hypothesis had been wrong. Avoiding Wilson wasn't going to work, because even when he avoided Wilson he still wound up with Wilson, in some way or another. They'd been separated before, by conferences and new jobs and honeymoons, but they were never more than a phone call away from each other. Which, House mused, was probably a key factor in the annoyance all three wives had held for him; none of them were ever number 1 on Wilson's speed-dial.

The mere fact that only thirty-six hours after their stalemate in House's apartment they'd fallen back into their proprietary brand of easy conversation spoke volumes: clearly, distance was not the answer. House wasn't going to be able to figure out what to do about The Problem of Wilson (as he'd so neatly labeled it in his head, complete with fancy lettering and a little Princeton-Plainsboro logo) just by temporary relocation. It was much more complicated than he'd initially thought. They were more complicated. He'd have to do better than that.

His epiphany finally showed up, way overdue, that night during dinner. He was halfway through a big plate of okra and fried chicken when he realized that the only way to sort out the mess between himself and Wilson was to face the issue head-on. He wouldn't address it directly - he couldn't. Wilson was just as stubborn as House (if not sometimes more so); he would deny it and they'd end up bickering and House would have to pay for his own lunches for a week. Confrontation was obviously not the answer.

The answer was that he would have to make Wilson do most of the work. Wilson would have to be the one to bring it up. Wilson would have to _admit_ that he was in love with him. That would give House the defensive edge, since Wilson wouldn't be able to deny it, or lie to him. House could then shoot him down (eagerly but gently; contrary to popular belief House didn't go around kicking puppies for fun) and Wilson could be apologetic the way House preferred him to be, and the whole business would be history given over to cable TV and bottles of Grolsch. All House had to do was get Wilson to do it. _Seduce_ him, he supposed, though that word brought to mind the bodice-rippers Cuddy kept stashed in the bottom drawer of her desk, and House had a hard time applying that to anything involving Wilson.

House swallowed hard and took a long pull of his Coke. Seduce was the wrong word. Flirt was better - a little less terrifying, a lot less... gay.

It wasn't that House was homophobic; he wasn't, not by a long shot. His misspent youth in San Francisco had taught him a few things and those few things had been _incredibly_ fun. He had fond memories of cutting classes at sixteen, sneaking off to Union Street and educating himself on the assorted mating habits of the human race. In the end however he'd decided that soft-and-squishy trumped hard-and-hairy as far as his preferences went, and from there on in he'd kept it strictly snatch. He never - well, hardly ever - spared another man a second glance, and he was not attracted to Wilson.

Sure, Wilson had nice eyes. They were kind of like a dog's - sad but friendly. House could admit to himself that back in the old days he'd noticed Wilson not because of his stellar educational background but because the kid had been _extremely_ pretty, the kind of pretty that must have made hazing complete hell for him back in college. You'd have to be _dead_ not to be shaken by that kind of beauty in a person. As time wore on the prettiness turned into handsome which eventually mellowed into something more average, more normal. House could recognize that Wilson was still pretty good-looking, but he wasn't attracted to it. Not anymore, anyway.

But Wilson didn't have to know that.

House smiled at his own cleverness, finished off his Coke and signaled the pretty, red-headed waitress for another.

--

Wilson met him at the baggage carousels at a quarter after nine.

"I brought you something," said House, by way of a greeting. He dug in his knapsack and pulled out a rubber duck made to look like Elvis and handed it to Wilson. "Saw that, thought of you."

"Excellent." Wilson studied the thing warily. "It's always... bracing to know you remind someone of tacky, plastic waterfowl." He pocketed the duck, and House noted that there was something approaching a smile lurking at the corners of Wilson's eyes.

"He's an _Elvis Celebriduck_, thank you." House limped over to the carousel and spotted his bag. "Help a cripple out, man," he said, pointing it out.

With a grunt Wilson hefted the bag over his shoulder. "You hungry?"

House made a face. "All they fed me on the plane were peanuts and little crackers shaped like airplanes."

"So that'd be a yes." Wilson matched his gait easily to House's lopsided one, and House wondered when exactly he'd learned how to do that. "Only place still open is the diner."

"Works for me," said House.

The diner was a dusty old Greek-owned establishment near the country club. The food wasn't great for the prices but both House and Wilson enjoyed it for the fact that they were too lazy to look for a different place. House sometimes expected Wilson to suggest they find somewhere else, because Wilson was a total food whore, but he never did. He ordered the same thing nearly every time they went: turkey salad and lentil soup, because he actually liked turkey and vegetables and because they were two things that were difficult for House to pillage. House knew this and almost always wound up with a burger and extra fries that Wilson would swipe when he thought House wasn't looking.

They left House's stuff in the car and sat down at their usual booth, the one by the window with the broken jukebox. The waitress brought them coffee without asking, and House felt himself start to relax a little. He was home.

"How was Mecca?" asked Wilson, adding sugar packet after sugar packet to his coffee. "Any spiritual awakenings to report?"

"I achieved nirvana," House announced. He added one packet of Splenda to his coffee, stirred and took a sip. "The angels descended before me in a riot of rhinestones and sang unto me, 'Nay, thou wilt not tread upon thy blue shoes of suede'."

Wilson smirked and sipped from his cup. He eyed House knowingly. "You didn't set foot in that convention, did you?"

House snorted. "Not even to check out the buffet," he said. "I just wanted a vacation."

"Didn't you just have a vacation? I thought Cuddy bought you that plane ticket-"

"Didn't go."

Wilson blinked. "Why not? What did you..." His voice trailed off and he sighed. "You sat on your couch for a week, didn't you?"

"Not just on my couch," said House, affronted. "I spent some quality time at the piano and in bed and on the can."

"Nice." Wilson shook his head. "You should have gone. She told me where she'd sent you, it's nice. Julie and I honeymooned in Vancouver."

House fixed him with a look. "And that worked out so well for you," he snapped, without thinking. He felt immediate regret, although years of practice prevented him from showing it. "You told me that trip was miserable," he added quickly.

"Well, it was," said Wilson. If he were hurt, he wasn't showing it either. "Julie got food poisoning from the room service. Blamed me." He shook his head. "Obviously, it was an error in judgement on my part to want to stay in the hotel room and spend time with my new wife."

"Enough to put you off women for good?" House asked. Wilson flinched.

"That wasn't it," he said, glancing around and lowering his voice. "It wasn't just one thing or even a whole bunch of things, House. It just is."

The waitress reappeared to take their orders. Wilson, as predictable as the weather, asked for a turkey salad and lentil soup, which left House to get his medium-well burger, hold everything but the tomato, extra fries. The waitress topped off their coffees and went away, and House looked at Wilson.

"How'd you know?" he asked.

Wilson busied himself adding more sugar to his coffee. "How'd I know what?" He looked up and met House's gaze. "Ah. Uh, well." He shrugged. "Ed McMahon didn't show up on my doorstep with an oversized telegram from Publisher's Queeringhouse or anything, if that's what you mean."

House made a rude noise. "That's not what I mean."

"I always knew," said Wilson. He leaned forward on his elbows, studied his hands. House looked at them as well and saw that Wilson had started biting his fingernails again. "I didn't- I ignored it for a long time. Obviously. I tried to marry it away."

"Expensive therapy," remarked House. "And pointless." Wilson rewarded him with a weak smile. "Why come out now? You're forty, man. A little late to be getting your gay on, isn't it?"

Wilson sighed. "That's what I thought," he said. "But apparently it's never too late. Or so my therapist claims." He looked uneasy for a moment, and House picked up on it immediately.

"You're not convinced," he said.

"No," said Wilson, shaking his head. "I'm not. How the hell do I do this, House?" He looked at him, shoulders sagging a little. "How do I even meet-" He stopped, hesitating as he glanced around the diner. It was next to empty, but nevertheless Wilson leaned forward a little and whispered. "How do I _meet_ people?"

House flashed him a crooked smile. "You mean _men_," he said with sadistic glee as Wilson's ears turned red. "I wouldn't know."

"Well, exactly. I don't know anyone that _would_." Wilson rubbed at the back of his neck and stared into his coffee. "It's easy for my therapist to encourage me to... accept this, but it's another thing to actually put the theory into practice."

"Kind of like Communism." House leaned back as the waitress returned with their food and set his plate down in front of him.

Wilson thanked her and waited until she went away. "You just compared my sex life to Communism," he said, picking up his fork and poking at his salad. "I'm not sure how I feel about that."

"How's Cuddy?"

The abrupt change in subject earned him a dubious look. "She's... fine." said Wilson hesitantly, spearing a tomato. "She's twenty days past transfer, her hCG levels are good, little over four thousand." He chewed thoughtfully. "Doubling time's about 35 hours. It's encouraging."

Wilson suddenly began to eat as though he were starving. House thought he was avoiding the subject, that bringing up the pregnancy had spooked him. He could tell Wilson was just reciting something he'd been told, facts and figures that he'd only recently learned rather than anything he might know as a medical professional.

"Precarious," continued Wilson, polishing off the rest of his salad and turning his attention to his soup, "but encouraging. She's got an ultrasound on Monday."

"You going to be there?"

Wilson shrugged. "She didn't ask."

House grimaced. He'd been right, after all. Cuddy was going to keep Wilson at arm's length throughout the pregnancy, whether it was ultimately successful or not, and Wilson - being such a doormat House wondered idly if he had _WELCOME_ tattooed across his butt - wasn't planning on fighting for even a second-row seat, whether he had a right to one or not.

"You should be there," said House, wondering when he'd allowed himself to be replaced with a pod person. "You-"

"I don't know if I want to be there," interrupted Wilson. He looked at House, then back down at his soup. "For one thing, they're only going to make sure everything is where it should be. It's too early to really see anything interesting unless you're an obstetrician who knows what he's looking for."

House studied him. "What's the other thing?"

Wilson licked a small smear from the corner of his lips. "There is no other thing."

"Of course there is," said House. "Nobody says 'for one thing' unless there's another thing. So, what's the other thing?"

For a moment, Wilson didn't move. He didn't look at House or eat, and House wondered if he was even breathing. When Wilson eventually looked up, the look on his face was one that would have sent House running, or at the very least hopping gracelessly, for the hills. Then he remembered that he was supposed to be trying to be seductive - or at the very least likeable - to Wilson. He forced himself to stay still and to give Wilson what he hoped was an inquisitive look of concern, though he probably just looked constipated.

"I don't know," said Wilson finally. House's leg twitched, but thankfully Wilson didn't elaborate. He went back to eating his soup, filching several French fries from House's plate. House gave him a half-assed swat that didn't connect, but he didn't care. They ate in personable silence, sharing-time over for now, and House was relieved. It wasn't that he didn't want to hear what Wilson had to say. That wasn't why he usually discouraged him from opening up.

He just didn't like not always knowing the right answer.

--

On Monday Cuddy brought him the case of the teenage daughter of a very wealthy, very powerful and - according to her - very testy donor. "You will treat this girl," said Cuddy. "And you'll be nice and courteous to her parents, because they have a lot of money and we need as much of it as we can get."

"The usual methods not working so well anymore?" House eyed the case file in her hand as if it were snake about to strike. "It's probably because your ankles are swelling. Bloated, pregnant-woman ankles are just not sexy, I don't care what the porn sites say."

Cuddy gave him a look, and House read it perfectly: _Don't joke about this. It's too early._ "Sorry," he muttered quietly. He snatched the file folder from her fingers and flipped through it. "You had an ultrasound this morning."

"How did you-"

"Wilson," said House, giving her a look. A look of delight flickered across her face, so quickly House nearly didn't catch it. "Was he there?"

"He had a patient," she said. "Are you asking to know the results?"

House looked at her, keeping his expression neutral. "Morbid curiousity."

Cuddy hesitated. "...normal intrauterine pregnancy," she said quietly. "It looks good."

"Good." He looked back at the file, reading it without seeing the words. "Do I say congratulations, yet?"

"Not yet." He felt her eyes on him, but he didn't look up. "I'll let you know."

"You do that," he said.

He let himself out, heading for the elevators. The patient - Darla Hicks, a senior at Princeton Day School and daughter of Marshall Hicks, newspaper tycoon - had just arrived in the meat wagon having been found unconscious by her mother (the famous Mariel Hicks, interior designer to the rich and powerful). The ER hadn't been able to revive her, and the girl now languished in a coma in the ICU. House groaned. Girl-in-a-coma meant that he would have to deal with her parents, and the only thing he hated more than a patient was a patient's family. He punched the elevator call button with a little more force than necessary and caused an orderly standing nearby to reconsider and take the stairs.

Marshall Hicks was a short, round man with a face that reminded House strongly of a potato. House hovered outside the girl's room, angling his head until he could just catch a glimpse of Mariel Hicks through the blinds. She looked potentially tall, willowy, her eyes red as she hovered over the tubed and prone body of her daughter. House took a deep breath, mentally crossed himself and thought of England before sliding open the door and limping into the room.

"Hi there," he said. "I'm Doctor House. You must be the infamous Hicks."

"Yes," said Marshall Hicks, drawing himself up to his full and unimpressive height. "What is wrong with my daughter?"

House feigned interest in her charts, so that he wouldn't have to look at Mr. Potato Head. "That's why they pays me the big bucks," he said to the clipboard in his hand. "To answer questions like that. Tell me about your kid - what was she doing when you found her?"

The weeping willow clutching the girl's limp hand spoke in a whisper. "I'd just come in from my Pilates class," she said, sniffling delicately. "I'd called ahead, but Darla didn't answer the house phone, or her cell. I found her on the bathroom floor." Mariel Hicks hiccuped, a tiny sound that made House think of a wounded animal.

"Any history of seizures?"

"No." Marshall Hicks shook his head. House resisted the urge to look up. "She's a Hicks. We're healthy as horses."

House made a noncommittal sound. "Barbaro would disagree with that statement."

"Excuse me?"

"Barbaro," said House, glancing at Mariel Hicks. "Won the Kentucky Derby last year. They had to put him down after he tanked at the Preakness."

Marshall Hicks puffed up. "Are you comparing my daughter to a-"

"Actually, you did." House put down the clipboard and limped over to Darla's bedside. "Hold this," he said, thrusting his cane into her mother's hands. The woman grasped it with both hands and looked as if she expected it to explode, as House leaned down and pried Darla's eyes open, one by one, shining his penlight into them.

Mariel Hicks began sniffling again, as if gearing up to bawl prettily once more. "Please," she said. "What's wrong with her?"

House opened his mouth to respond, then closed it. He frowned, then pulled back Darla's sheets. "Good lord," he said, eyes wide. "She's got legs like a linebacker."

"Darla plays field hockey," said Marshall Hicks. "Varsity."

"Any good?" House looked the girl over from head to toe, taking in bruises consistent with having the crap beat out of her by brawny girls carrying big, wooden sticks. He could _feel_ the pride building in the room, radiating from Marshall and Mariel Hicks like the smell of a cow-pie on a warm day. "Let me guess, they were headed for state."

"It was in the bag," said Marshall Hicks. "Darla was determined to get them there. She loves to play."

House frowned as he mulled that over. "Had she been complaining of anything? Feeling sick? Say, lightheaded, nausea, that sort of thing?"

Her parents exchanged looks. House groaned inwardly. "She'd had a little bit of the flu all last week," said her mother. "Nothing too serious, just dizzy and a little short of breath. I think she might have thrown up her breakfast one morning, but I thought she might have just eaten too fast. She didn't even miss school."

"Right." House nodded, then he did something even he would agree might seem a bit odd to the average observer. He bent and sniffed Darla's left knee. Her parents gasped.

"What are you _doing_?" exclaimed Mariel Hicks. House ignored her and sniffed the other knee, then her thigh. He lifted one noodle-like arm and nosed at her bicep. "Excuse me-"

"Shut up," snapped House. He leaned in and sniffed the girl's right shoulder. "If you want me to diagnose your daughter, you'll shut up."

"You're diagnosing her by... _smelling_ her?"

When he was satisfied, House straightened up and fixed her parents with a glare. "Do you keep track of what your kid's buying on a regular basis?" he asked. "Or are you too busy with Pilates and trying to intimidate old, crippled doctors?"

"I beg your-"

"Take a page from your average mammal's book of parenting and sniff your kid once in a while," he said. "You'll notice she doesn't smell like a teenage girl. Nothing fruity or flowery or sparkly, or whatever it is girls spend their money on. She smells _medicinal_. She smells like a tube of Ben Gay, which I suspect she's been buying in bulk for at least the last two or three months. Normally, a supply like that would last someone the entire season, but not if they're smearing it all over themselves all day, every day, enough for the smell to penetrate her skin - along with _insane_ amounts of methyl salicylate."

"Methyl- Is that what's hurting her?" asked Mariel Hicks, aghast.

House nodded. "I'll get a nurse in here to take some blood and get it to the labs for a tox screen to confirm."

Marshall Hicks's spud-like face took on a grey pallor. "Will she be all right?"

He hated this part. "Don't know," he said evenly. "Treatment for salicylate poisoning is hemodialysis and blood transfusions. If she wakes up, she'll probably be fine. If not..." He shrugged.

At that point House decided to beat a hasty exit, as the mother began to wail and the father muttered something about Pfizer and lawsuits. He let himself out of the room and dropped by the nurses' station to deliver his instructions, then turned to head back to the elevators. Cuddy owed him a _real_ case, now.

He never made it. Wilson met him halfway there. "Hey," he said. "Busy?" Wilson suddenly frowned and listened; the faint yet unmistakable sounds of bawling could be heard drifting down the hall from the ICU. "I'm thinking no."

"Don't worry, their kid's gonna live," said House with a snort. "I just made sure they're going to actually pay attention to her from now on."

"Very thoughtful of you," said Wilson.

"How do you _not_ notice your kid smells like a retirement home?" House said, jabbing at the elevator call button. "Where are you going?"

Wilson shrugged. "Lunch time," he said. "You?"

"Lunch time quickie with Cuddy, but I suppose she's off-limits now that she's gestating." He stole a look at Wilson. "I'll buy."

"You- what?" The elevator arrived and the doors open, but Wilson made no move to get on. "Did you just say that _you_ are going to buy lunch?"

House frowned and stepped into the elevator. "You coming or not?"

"Of course." Wilson followed him and pressed the button for the basement. "I'm just wondering why my feet are cold."

"Thin socks?" House offered.

"I'm thinking more along the lines of Hell having frozen over."

"Har dee har har," said House.

--

The repercussions from his treatment of Marshall Hicks's daughter were swift and mighty.

"You told them their daughter was going to die!" exclaimed Cuddy, storming around her office like a fashionable cyclone. "You made them feel horrible."

"They _should_ feel horrible," said House. He sat on her couch, calmly drinking a cup of coffee. "Their kid was mainlining muscle cream and they didn't notice until she'd keeled over. Who does that?"

Cuddy rolled her eyes. "Not everyone is as paranoid about everyone else as you are," she said. "Who expects their child is going to abuse muscle cream?"

"People will abuse anything worth abusing. Especially if they're in pain." To emphasize his point he reached for his bottle of Vicodin, palming one and swallowing it with a mouthful of coffee. "All I said is that they should _notice_ what their kid is up to _before_ she ends up in an emergency room."

"Or comes out of the closet?" Cuddy gave him a knowing look. "Is that what this is about?"

House sighed. "No," he said carefully, as if he were addressing a particularly stupid child. "This is about a pair of idiots not noticing that their kid was swimming in vats of Ben Gay."

Cuddy nodded. "Of course it is," she said, with a sarcastic little pout. "_And_ it's about how you're upset you weren't able to figure Wilson out before he told you." She smiled at him indulgently. "House, it's okay to be a little freaked out. You _should_ be a little freaked out. It's normal."

"And I'm such a paragon of normalcy," said House. He narrowed his eyes at her. "Why're _you_ shutting Wilson out of this pregnancy?"

"What?" Cuddy blinked, her mouth falling open a little. "I'm not-"

House pressed on. "You didn't ask him to the ultrasound," he said. "And he hasn't told me the results."

"_I_ told you the results."

"But _he_ didn't." House pointed at her. "You're pushing him away, keeping things from him. Why?"

Cuddy pressed her lips together in a thin line and leaned against her desk. She looked down at herself, resting a hand against her abdomen. "I had- I had some spotting," she said softly. "Not a lot, but even a little is scary enough." She looked up at him. "Threatened abortion. I had the same thing happen right before I lost the last one."

Uncomfortable in the face of something so personal, House cleared his throat and fidgeted with his cane. "You don't know that it'll happen again," he said, but even as he spoke he regretted every word. "He deserves to be involved. You're _lucky_ he even _wants_ to be involved-"

"I _know_ that," snapped Cuddy. "I just- I just don't want to have to tell him I've failed. _Again._" She swiped at her eyes. "Because this time it's not just me I have to disappoint."

House stood and limped across the room, leaning around her to pluck a couple of sheets of Kleenex from the box on her desk. He handed them to her and watched as she blew her nose. "After eight weeks the threat of miscarriage decreases sharply," he said quietly. "When did you lose the other one?"

Cuddy sniffled. "Six weeks, three days," she said.

"Talk to him at eight weeks, one day." He reached up and thumbed a stray tear from her cheek. "Don't keep him in the dark, anymore."

"Okay." Cuddy nodded. "I will." She looked at him, expression suddenly curious. "House, why do you care so much if Wilson's involved?"

For a moment, he didn't have an answer to that. He started to protest when he remembered Wilson hunched over the table in the diner, looking small and unsettled.

"Because," said House with a shrug. "Wilson's got nothing else going for him. He's divorced, he lives in a hotel, and he just came out of the closet at the age of forty." He sighed. "This is the only thing he's got that he hasn't had a chance to screw up yet."

Cuddy smiled. "Sometimes it's nice to be reminded that you do, in fact, have a heart."

"Of course I have a heart." House limped away toward the door. "And I've got three more at home in my freezer."

"Will you apologize to the Hicks family?"

"Don't press your luck."

--

House was getting impatient. A week of being nice to Wilson - buying him lunch, holding doors open, not making any jokes about one-breasted women and bald kids - had delivered no results. Wilson hadn't done anything more than give him a few appreciative smiles, which were warm and sincere and driving House insane. Wilson was not cooperating. It was time to bring out the big guns.

The two of them were hardcore Discovery Channel nerds, and since Wilson's hotel only got the most basic cable they'd fallen into a comfortable habit of watching TV together on certain nights. House provided the beer and the TV, and Wilson's job was to bring the food - usually.

"Are you sure?" House could picture the look of confusion on Wilson's face. It was Wednesday night - Mythbusters night - and Wilson was working late; House was already home. "I can still stop somewhere."

"Forget about it," said House. "Just get over here." He snapped his phone shut and tossed it on his bed, and stared into his closet with abject terror. What the hell did you _wear_ to a seduction? And why was he calling it that? Flirting. Heavy, determined flirting, that's all it was. Just enough to lower Wilson's defenses and inspire him to confess. Nothing more. Nobody's bodice was getting ripped or anything. House shuddered at the thought.

In the end he decided on jeans and a t-shirt, which wasn't very imaginative but House just didn't care. He didn't want it to be _too_ obvious what he was up to, and dressing nicely would definitely be too obvious. If he wouldn't wear it to church, he wouldn't wear it to pretend trying to get into his best friend's pants, and since he never went to church that left him with few other options.

He contemplated lighting some candles, then lit one and immediately blew it out, feeling like an idiot. No candles. Instead he made a half-assed attempt at mood-lighting, turning on just one lamp in his living room and leaving the rest dark, but the attempt was thwarted when he whacked his shin on the coffee table. Cursing a litany and hopping around a bit awkwardly, he turned on his usual amount of lights and popped an extra Vicodin.

Wilson arrived before the food did, looking tired and harried. House knew he'd lost a couple of patients this morning but he didn't ask about them. He sat on the couch watching the tail end of Jeopardy! as Wilson hung up his jacket.

"Sorry I'm late," said Wilson. "I had a meeting, then Cuddy wanted me with her for her second ultrasound." He beamed suddenly. "We heard the heartbeat, it's looking good."

"Glad to hear it." House didn't look up as Wilson sat down, loosening his tie a little.

"What's the category?"

House made a face. "Poem Titles."

The commercial ended and Alex Trebek reappeared to read the final clue. Wilson read it aloud with him, as he usually did. "'This poem says, _For all averred, I had killed the bird that made the breeze to blow_.' Tennyson?"

House shook his head. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

He was right, but a knock on the door kept them from seeing if any of the contestants were. "You got Thai?" said Wilson, once the delivery boy had gone. "I thought you didn't like Thai."

"It's all right," said House with a shrug. "You like it though, don't you?"

"Yeah." Wilson nodded, and half-smiled. "It's my favourite, actually."

"Lucky for you." House poked through the bag, taking a container of noodles for himself. He settled back, food and chopsticks in hand, and changed the channel to Discovery. "I think this one's about avalanches or something."

Wilson slurped at a pint of coconut soup. "Sounds like there's plenty of potential there for explosions in the name of science."

"Makes me miss chemistry class." House punched the volume. "Shut up, now."

Usually, Mythbusters addressed more than one myth per episode. In addition to testing whether or not a yodel could start an avalanche, they were also testing whether or not your tongue would stick to a metal pole if it were cold enough. "Like in _A Christmas Story_," said Wilson. "God, I love that movie. _You'll put your eye out, kid!_"

"Why are you watching Christmas movies?"

"Because there are no movies about the Hannukah fairy," said Wilson, without looking away from the TV. "I like the Grinch, too."

House grinned. "Because he reminds you of someone?" he asked.

"Only you would feel _flattered_ if someone compared you to the Grinch," said Wilson disparagingly. "And no. I've always liked Dr. Seuss."

"Oh." House pouted. He decided then to try his first tactic: flattery. "I like that shirt," he said, apropros of nothing. Luckily, everyone who knew him was used to his non-sequiturs, especially Wilson.

Wilson looked over at him and frowned. "What's wrong with it?" he asked, looking down at himself.

"Nothing's wrong with it," said House. "I said I liked it."

"Oh," said Wilson. "I thought you were being sarcastic."

"By saying I liked your shirt?"

"You said you liked my haircut the other day, only it turned out you really didn't."

"I did not!"

"You said it made me look like Barney Fife."

"Well... That's different. I'm not talking about your hair anymore, I'm talking about your shirt, and all I was saying is that I like it."

"Oh."

"Blue's a good color on you." Exasperated, House looked away and frowned. This wasn't going as well as he'd hoped.

"O...kay," said Wilson. They fell into silence, and House felt a stab of annoyed disappointment. Flattery, obviously, did _not_ get you everywhere. He stared at the TV without really seeing it and tried to think of something else.

At the commercial, Wilson got up and stretched a little. "I think I need another beer. You want one?"

"Hang on." Getting up as well, House reached out and carefully smudged away something nonexistent from Wilson's chin, letting his thumb linger for a second longer than necessary. "You had a little something, there," he said quietly.

"Thanks," said Wilson, giving House a strange look. "I think. Excuse me."

He moved away, and for House that was the last straw.

"What is the _matter_ with you?" House blurted out. Wilson jumped, startled.

"Nothing!" he exclaimed. "What's the matter with _you_?"

House pointed a finger at him. "_You_ are in love with me," he announced. "And you refuse to admit it."

Wilson gaped, his mouth opening and closing a few times like a fish. "_What_?" he sputtered.

"You heard me."

"Are you _high_?" said Wilson, staring at House as if he'd sprouted a second head. "I'm not _in love_ with you!"

"See, this is what I was trying to avoid," said House, rolling his eyes. "Do we really need to go through this? You deny it, I ignore you, you admit that I'm right, we move on. Why can't we cut out all the boring stuff between now and that last part?"

"No!" Wilson yelped. "House, this is- This is ridiculous! I'm not in love with you! Just because I'm gay doesn't mean I want to sleep with you. I'm not gay by proximity, it doesn't work like that!"

House shook his head. "It _fits_," he insisted. "Of course you want to sleep with me. You want to sleep with everybody you get close to. Why should I be any different? Especially now that you're gay."

Wilson made a frustrated noise. "_I don't want to sleep with you!_ I'm barely even attracted to you!" he said. "House, where is this coming from?"

"I needed to know why-"

"Oh, now I get it." Wilson shook his head. "You needed to make it a _puzzle_." He laughed without mirth. "You had to make this into one of your cases, so you could find - I don't know, some kind of safety or comfort in dissecting everything I do and say." He glared at House. "You had to treat it like a symptom because you couldn't handle it otherwise."

"That's crap," said House, feeling a little unsettled because he didn't immediately know whether or not Wilson was right - which usually meant that he was. "Is that the kind of psychobabble your therapist uses on you, to make you sit up and bark on command?"

"It's the truth, isn't it?" Wilson studied him intently. "That wasps' nest you call a brain cooked up the notion that I'm in love with you because it gave you something to take apart, so you didn't have to actually think about what I told you. So you don't have to think about what I did for Cuddy, either."

"I don't care about what you did for Cuddy."

"Yeah, you do," said Wilson with a sigh, sticking his hands into his pockets. "I can tell."

House scowled. This was _not_ how this was supposed to go down. They should have been back on the couch and watching Futurama by now. He shouldn't have felt a weird, sinking sensation in his gut, though that might just have been the Thai food.

He glanced at Wilson. "You're really not in love with me."

"I'm pretty sure, yeah," said Wilson. "Just like I don't need or want to sleep with all of my female friends, I don't need or want to sleep with all of my male ones, either."

As Wilson turned to go into the kitchen House leaned hard on his cane, looking at the floor. "...why not?" he asked, before he could stop himself. He immediately hoped Wilson hadn't heard him.

"What?" Wilson reappeared, beer in his hand. "Why not what?"

Damn the man's bat-like hearing. "Nevermind."

"No." Wilson stood in the kitchen doorway and looked at House in confusion. "Why don't I want to sleep with my male friends? Because - and I know this is hard for you to accept - I am not, in fact, completely indiscriminate. And because most of my male friends are married, or straight, or over the age of sixty. Or all three." Wilson suddenly frowned. "Or is that not what you meant?"

"I said, nevermind." House moved suddenly, limping past Wilson to get a beer for himself.

"House." Wilson stared at him. "Are you asking me why I'm not in love with _you_?"

He said nothing. House didn't trust himself to respond, especially with Wilson. Either he'd say something truly mean-spirited and nasty that would result in a lot of yelling and the slamming of doors, or he'd say something innocuous, but Wilson would pick up on something in his tone that would result in a lot of yelling and the slamming of doors. He was screwed no matter what, so he stayed quiet.

Wilson swallowed audibly. "House?" He moved a little closer and House instinctively backed away until he felt the kitchen counter at his back. "Oh."

"It's an honest question," House offered feebly. "You know me. I'm a curious guy."

"I don't-" Wilson leaned against the fridge and looked at the floor. He seemed to be measuring his words carefully, which filled House with a bizarre sort of dread. "You can't just throw that word around like that." He looked at House. "Being in love with someone is different than just wanting to sleep with them."

House made a rude sound. "That's funny, the two have always been one and the same, with you. But fine, I'll play the semantics game. Replace 'in love with' with 'want to sleep with'. Is that better?"

"You're _straight_," said Wilson.

"So's Cuddy, but that didn't stop her during Rush Week."

"I'm not talking about this." Wilson held up his hands as if in surrender. "I don't know what you want me to tell you. Yes, I want to sleep with you? Like that's not going to make things even _more_ bizarre around here?"

House blinked. "You _do_ want to sleep with me?"

"No!" Wilson growled a little. "House, stop it! This isn't funny anymore! Not that it ever was!"

But House would not be deterred. He narrowed his eyes, brain buzzing now. The wasps were waking up. "You said before you were _barely_ attracted to me. That indicates some level of pre-existing attraction." He tilted his head and regarded Wilson curiously. "So, which is it? Are you or aren't you?"

There was a moment when House thought Wilson wouldn't answer, that he'd just turn around and walk out of the kitchen, out the front door. He could tell Wilson wanted to, but something kept him rooted where he stood, by the fridge, staring at the label of the beer in his hand. In the living room, the TV commanded them to apply something directly to the forehead.

"I was, once," said Wilson finally. "A long time ago." He looked up and fixed House with a bitter and slightly guilty look. "I got over it."

"Did you?" House asked, as he processed this new information. "Just got over it, just like that. Just that easy."

Wilson frowned. "Nothing's ever _just that easy_," he said grimly. "It took a while, but I accepted it. Moved on."

So House had been half-right, and for a reason he didn't want to think too hard about just yet, it pleased him. "But a little part of you still wonders what it'd be like to ride the Gregmobile."

"Well, when you put it like that, no." Wilson rolled his eyes, but House was more interested in the twin spots of red on his cheeks than any glib dismissals.

"I'm right," he said. "Whether I'm straight or not, you still want to plow me."

"God." Wilson winced and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I never should have-"

Suddenly he paused and looked up with an unreadable expression. House began to get nervous.

"Whether you're straight or not?" Wilson asked. "As in, this is open to debate?"

Crap. "Let's not lose focus, here," he said quickly. "We're picking on you, right now."

"No, I think we're going to pick on you, now." Wilson regarded him suspiciously. "What did you mean by that?"

"The commercials are over, by the way. We're missing very important explosions."

"House-"

He panicked quietly. "They're going to blow up _mountains_, you know."

"You're not as straight as everybody thinks you are, are you?" Wilson snapped. When House didn't answer, he pressed on. "That's why you're freaking out. It's not about me, it's about _you_."

"Everything's about me," said House weakly. He couldn't look at Wilson. He didn't want to see him with the smug, righteous grin of triumph that should have been his to wear. "I know you got that memo."

Wilson ignored him. "We've been friends longer than most marriages last," he said. "Certainly mine. But that's all it was, we were just friends, nothing else. How could we be anything else? We weren't wired for it."

"Don't."

"There are no more walls between us," said Wilson evenly. He pushed off the fridge and pointed his forgotten beer at House. "The safety net of at least one of us being straight is gone."

"Didn't you just say that proximity doesn't automatically indicate a desire to sex someone up?" House snapped. "I thought it didn't work that way."

"And I was right, it doesn't." Wilson smiled. "But this isn't just proximity. This is us."

House let that sink in. "I like us," he said quietly, risking a glance at Wilson. "We _work_. The way we are," he added hastily.

"Sometimes. Sometimes, we don't. Things - friendships - can change." Wilson shuffled his feet and looked back, a little shyly. "You're afraid of that. Of the possibility."

"I'm not gay enough to want to date you," said House simply. "And you know me too well to want to date me."

Wilson laughed a little. "House, possibilities aren't something you run away from."

"Or, in my case, gimp with haste? Because I'm faster than I look."

"Stop," said Wilson sharply. "Stop thinking you can always control everything and everyone around you. You can't. Sometimes you just have to... go with it. Let things happen the way they're supposed to happen."

House mulled that over. "And is this," he gestured between them with one hand, "supposed to happen?"

Wilson shrugged. "I don't know," he said, with a long sigh. He looked at House. "Maybe, maybe not. We have to take it one day at a time and just... see."

"You're serious," said House, staring at him. "You seriously want to just... I don't even _know_ what you want to do!"

"Well..." Wilson looked thoughtful. "For now? I wouldn't mind sitting down and watching the rest of the show," said Wilson. He gave House a sly look. "I'll even let you have the remote back. Consider it a peace offering."

"Or a come-on," House grumbled, though good-naturedly.

With another laugh Wilson retreated into the living room. House remained behind, trying to figure out what had just happened. He'd been right in thinking that confronting Wilson would lead to denial, but what he hadn't factored in was the way it would affect him. Somewhere along the line and for whatever reason he'd begun to _enjoy_ the idea of Wilson being in love with him, and finding out that Wilson wasn't had left a strange hollow in his chest, the absence of something he couldn't name. He hadn't even known it was there until he was told he couldn't have it anymore, when it was taken away.

There was something else there now, though. A weird, buzzy little sensation that had formed when Wilson suggested they _wait and see_, a feeling that gained momentum when House finally sat down next to him and Wilson handed him the remote. He thought it might be something like hope, something relatively unfamiliar to him though not entirely unpleasant. What exactly he was hoping for, he couldn't tell. Maybe he didn't know, yet, but where not knowing something for certain usually made him uncomfortable and crazy, he didn't mind it so much this time. He wondered why.

He glanced over at Wilson. Eventually, Wilson realized he was being stared at and turned toward him. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Oh."

They looked at each other in awkward confusion for a moment, then turned back to the TV. House smiled inwardly, reassured now that whatever happened between them wouldn't just take him by surprise. It'd take the both of them. He wasn't alone in this.

And that was enough.

--

_Six-and-a-half months later._

--

At 30 weeks Cuddy unsurprisingly developed pre-eclampsia. She was admitted under House's care, because in her panic and delirium she wouldn't stop asking for him, something he wasn't going to let her forget, _ever_. Several hours later, she gave birth via C-section to Harry, who weighed in at a little over four pounds. The kid was tiny and at first unstable, but after just a couple of nights on CPAP he began to improve. House found Wilson haunting the NICU looking pale, tired and completely overwhelmed.

They stood together in the hall, gazing at the small, red, wriggly thing through the window. Wilson could not keep still; House could not stop staring.

"He got your eyebrows _and_ her nose," said House, with a disappointed sigh. "Your kid's got no choice but to become a comedian. Or a rabbi."

Wilson's proud smile didn't waver. "So long as he's happy," he said. House quelled the urge to vomit. "I don't care what he does. Besides," he added, glancing at House with a smirk. "I know a good plastic surgeon."

"What a healthy outlook," said House. A nurse came in and fussed over the baby, and House could feel Wilson tense beside him. "Relax. She's changing his diaper, not preparing him as a brisket."

"He's so small." Wilson leaned against the glass a little. "But you're sure he's doing fine."

"He could go off the CPAP as soon as tomorrow," said House.

"Good. Thanks, House."

"Don't mention it. And don't let him call me Uncle Greg or any of that crap."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Wilson smiled at him. "Breakfast?"

"The diner?"

"Yeah."

"You buying?"

Wilson sighed. "Of course."

"Groovy. Let's go."

They left, walking down the hall together as they'd always done before, the only difference being the gentle presence of House's hand at the small of Wilson's back.

_- fin -_


End file.
